Official Statistics

Background Quality Report for the Single Living Accommodation Lived Experience Survey 2022

Published 22 September 2022

Background Quality Report for the Single Living Accommodation Lived Experience Survey

Introduction

1.1 Overview

The Single Living Accommodation (SLA) Lived Experience Survey was designed by the Ministry of Defence (MOD) to produce statistics that would help to inform decisions on the future design of SLA. In particular, the survey was intended to understand what Service personnel in the UK Armed Forces want and need from SLA and how SLA is currently being used.

This is the first publication of these statistics.

For the 2022 survey, data collection was conducted during April and May 2022. This survey was open to all current Service personnel (Regular and Reserves) in the UK Armed Forces.

1.2 Background and Context

Service personnel (SP) serving in the UK Armed Forces are entitled to subsidised accommodation as a condition of service as outlined in the MOD Tri-Service Accommodation Regulations (JSP 464) Single Living Accommodation is normally provided in the form of accommodation blocks inside military bases. It is available to single and unaccompanied personnel undertaking initial training or those serving on a regular engagement with the Armed Forces. It can be used as a permanent residence for some SP or on an ad hoc basis by others, where they have an additional residence, for example their own home.

In 2020, the National Audit Office (NAO) undertook an audit on Single Living Accommodation provided to Service personnel. It examined whether the Ministry of Defence is providing SLA that, as far as possible, meets its needs and those of Service personnel, in a way that delivers value for money.

The NAO recommended:

‘The Department should carry out and make use of work on the ‘lived experience’ to better understand what personnel want from SLA and inform future accommodation plans. The Department should look at how it can regularly collect data on experiences of SLA. The Department should also make better use of available data such as AFCAS [Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey], to understand how SLA provision links to retention, where necessary amending survey questions to capture the data required.’ (Recommendation 4: Lived Experience).

In 2021, following the NAO report, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) took evidence from the MOD and reported on this with several recommendations. It recommended:

The Department should set out clearly in its Defence Accommodation Strategy (DAS)… how it plans to gather the views of Service personnel on Single Living Accommodation’ (Recommendation 2C).

This is a new publication. The SLA Lived Experience Survey was designed in response to the recommendations of the NAO and PAC to collect data on the views of SP about SLA. It is also intended to inform and shape the future building design of SLA, produce robust evidence to inform accommodation policy design and to be used to understand if wants and needs vary about SLA over time.

1.3 Documentation

The SLA Lived Experience Survey 2022 report contains the following sections:

• Main report: a narrative and graphical report outlining the main findings and methodology
• Reference tables: tables of estimates and margins of error for questions asked in the survey, broken down by Service (Royal Navy/Royal Marines, Army, Royal Air Force) and by rank (Officers and Other Ranks/Ratings)
• Questionnaire: as administered for the 2022 survey

1.4 Methodology and Production

There were nine stages in the SLA Lived Experience Survey process. Each of these stages is briefly described below.

Stage 1: Questionnaire design

The questionnaire was designed by Government Social Researchers from the MOD Accommodation Analysis Team working with Accommodation Policy colleagues and members of the SLA Expert Group (SLAEG) and Accommodation Coherence Group (ACG). The SLAEG and ACG include members of the Front Line Commands and Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO). The research protocol was given favourable review by the Royal Navy Scientific Advisory Committee.

Stage 2: Sample design

All Service personnel (regular and reserves) were invited to participate in the survey. SLA can be used by any SP, at any time, therefore the MOD did not wish to exclude any SP from participating.

Stage 3: Survey distribution and communications

The SLA Survey was distributed as an online survey. Survey participation was publicised internally to SP using a variety of established communications channels (for example, via weekly routine orders and Defence Connect) and on social media platforms. It is recognised that not all SP may have been able to access the internet and complete the survey, for example due to being on overseas deployment.

Stage 4: Data input

Online survey responses are held securely on Ministry of Defence servers.

Stage 5: Data cleaning

All responses were downloaded from the survey platform. Any invalid responses were removed and do not contribute to the response rate. A response was considered invalid if it was completely blank or did not contain a response to the following questions: ‘Which Service do you serve in?’ and ‘What is your current Rank?’ Where appropriate, questions were then recoded to simplify the output. For example, all 5-point Likert scale responses are recoded into a 3-point positive, neutral, negative scale. Responses are weighted by rank and Service. This accounts for bias caused by differing levels of response. Full details of the weighting plan are available in the methodology section of the Main Report.

Stage 6: Production of results

Tables of results were produced using Microsoft Excel. Each estimate carries a margin of error to enable users to observe the level of uncertainty in the estimate.

Stage 7: Checking

The data tables and the content of the narrative report were quality assured by a member of the Government Statistical Service.

Stage 8: Publication

The SLA Lived Experience Survey is published on GOV.UK Statistics at MOD

2. Relevance

The principal users of the SLA Lived Experience Survey publication are the MOD Accommodation Policy Team, Front Line Commands and Defence Infrastructure Organisation. The statistical information is used to inform the development of the Armed Forces accommodation policy and physical building design of service accommodation. The information can also be used to answer parliamentary questions and Freedom of Information requests. These statistics are the only means through which Service personnel wants and needs from SLA are captured. The survey is anonymous and confidential.

3. Accuracy

The survey was open to all Regular and Reserve Service personnel, whether in receipt of Single Living Accommodation or not.

As the survey did not achieve 100% response rates there is always the risk that those who returned questionnaires have differing views from those who did not. We assume that all non-response is Missing at Random (MAR) within each weighting class. This means we have assumed that those people who did not return their questionnaires do not differ from those who did respond in their perceptions and attitudes. If those who did not respond have different attitudes to those who did respond, then the observations in this report will be biased and will not represent the attitudes of all Armed Forces personnel; rather our observations would only represent the views of the responding population.

Response rates tend to be lower for Other Ranks, compared to Officers. This may be due to distribution issues, as Officers tend to have easier access to MOD IT to access the survey, despite the survey being accessible from any device. Members of the Armed Forces who are deployed overseas may not have been able to access and complete the survey.

The results are weighted to account for the differing response rates. This ensures that the results reflect the distribution of Service and rank within the Armed Forces population. A lower response rate was observed in ‘Other Ranks,’ this means ‘Other Ranks’ had higher weights compared to Officers.

The population figures for weighting were derived from MOD Quarterly service personnel statistics 2021 as these were the most up to date statistics available at the time of analysis.

The survey data was analysed using Microsoft Excel. Manual checks were made by analysts to ensure data had been downloaded correctly from Lime Survey and recoding of responses had been successful. The analysis approach, formulas and results were quality assured by a member of the Government Statistical Service.

As this is the first Single Living Accommodation Survey it is not possible to compare the results to previous years or other surveys.

The survey is designed to give an up-to-date snapshot of the wants and needs of Service personnel relating to Single Living Accommodation. While the survey results have been reported as soon as possible, attitudes are liable to have changed since the survey was undertaken, for example because of events or even due to the time of the year that responses were collected (a seasonality effect).

A margin of error is provided for each estimate at a 95% confidence interval. Several questions are only asked of a subset of respondents; therefore, they typically carry a larger margin of error. Results are not presented where the responding group size is less than 30 as the results for groups of this size are considered too unreliable. Response rates by rank and Service are reported in the Main Report.

There are no scheduled revisions. Any required corrections will be released in updated reports, along with the reasons for corrections, on the GOV.UK website.

4. Timeliness and Punctuality

4.1 Timeline

The SLA Survey took approximately 11 months from agreeing the questionnaire to publishing the report. The questionnaire was agreed in October 2021 by the Accommodation Coherence Group and the research proposal was given a favourable review by the Navy Scientific Advisory Committee in December 2021. There was a gap of 4 months between the close of fieldwork and report publication, so findings are not current.

Data collection took place from 20 April 2022 to 20 May 2022.

4.2 Punctuality

The release date for this publication was preannounced on the MOD’s Calendar of Upcoming Releases on GOV.UK. All preannounced publication deadlines have been met.

5. Accessibility and Clarity

5.1 Access to publications

The SLA Lived Experience Survey report and questionnaire are available free of charge in fully accessibly formats on the GOV.UK website. Copies of the statistical tables in Microsoft Excel format are also available on the GOV.UK website.

5.2 Clarity

In addition to this Quality Report, the SLA Lived Experience Survey report highlights the main findings at the start of the report, contains a narrative section which aids users’ interpretation of the data, a methodology section including target population, information on the sample, respondents, weighting, statistical tests used, and notations and definitions used.

Detailed results are presented in background tables in the MS Excel spreadsheet and include tables showing margins of error. Relevant notes are included to indicate any filters that have been applied to the data or any issues with the data.

6. Coherence

The SLA survey was designed to examine what Service personnel in the UK Armed Forces want and need from SLA and how SLA is currently being used. There are no other data sources that collect the same information with which to ensure coherence.

7. Trade-offs between Output Quality Components

The main trade-off is between timeliness and quality. The tables are only broken down by Service and rank status for all survey questions. The trade-off is so that the basic statistical information can be made available to policy users and the public as soon as possible in a clear and accessible format. Additional analysis for policy users is available on request and external requests for further information would be considered under the usual Freedom of Information process.

8. Assessment of User Needs and Perceptions

The Accommodation Analysis Team worked closely with the Accommodation Policy Team and members of the SLA Expert Group and Accommodation Coherence Group so that the SLA Survey reflects policy user requirements.

The MOD has previously held regular consultation meetings with users of Defence Official Statistics, which provided a forum for user feedback on their needs and perceptions. Proposed changes were set out at the consultation meetings in order to gain feedback from both internal and external users. The MOD invites users to provide feedback to the statistical output teams on any of their publications or reports using the contact information on the front of the publication.

9. Performance, Cost and Respondent Burden

9.1 Performance and Cost Effectiveness

The report was delivered by MOD Government Social Researchers in the Accommodation Analysis Team as part of routine business, with no additional financial cost to the MOD.

9.2 Respondent Burden

Response to the SLA survey was voluntary. Participant information was provided within the questionnaires to encourage informed consent. It was estimated to take about 10 minutes for respondents to complete.

10. Confidentiality, Transparency and Security

10.1 Security

All staff involved in the SLA Lived Experience Survey report production process adhere to the MOD and Civil Service data protection regulations. In addition, staff involved in the production of this report have to follow the relevant codes of practice for their professional groups; the Government Statistical Service (GSS) and the Government Social Research (GSR) Profession. All data is stored, accessed, and analysed using the MOD’s secure IT system.

10.2 Confidentiality

The SLA Lived Experience Survey was anonymous. Service personnel were not asked to provide their Service Number, so their response could not be directly linked to them. Only a small number of individuals in the Accommodation Analysis Team have access to the record-level data. No record-level data is provided to anyone not directly involved with the analysis, unless covered by a Data Access Agreement. No person from any respondent’s Chain of Command can access individual level data. A Data Protection Impact Assessment was completed for this survey to minimise the risk to confidentiality, in accordance with the Data Protection Act.

10.3 Transparency

The SLA Lived Experience Survey report is published with details of the methodology and notes beneath statistical tables alerting readers to potential issues. This Quality Report informs users of the method, production process and quality of the output. Any significant errors identified after publication will result in revisions along with explanations as to the cause of the revisions.

11. References

Statistics at MOD Homepage MOD’s Timetable of Future Releases of National and Official Statistics

12. Contact Details

Accommodation Analysis Team People-Accommodation-Research@mod.gov.uk

Last updated: 22 September 2022